Airlines of the World
One of my main interests is commercial aviation. For those of you out
The DC-3 is the airplane that made airlines able to make money by flying passengers without a subsidy.
(click
for larger view)
Even now, over 75 years after it first entered service, the DC-3 is still flying and earning a living.
Michael Prophet has a great pictorial essay on surviving DC-3's.
there who are too young to remember, flying use to be fun. There was none of the TSA crap you had to go through. Pilots were permitted to allow passengers into the cockpit. You got real food onboard. Luggage, at least the first two bags, didn't cost you anything to check in. The airlines didn't nickel-and-dime you to death by charging for every single thing.
My main interest in airlines is in their "Golden Age" - the 1950's and 1960's. Flying was fun back then. People actually dressed up to fly. Many families went to the airport on a Sunday afternoon just to watch the planes. You got real food
onboard. You didn't have to go through so-called security to board the airplane.
Historical Airlines
Some of the greatest airlines are sadly no longer around. Many of them have websites written by former employees that chronicle these great airlines.
- Braniff International Hisorical Site and Braniff International Airways History
- Capital Airlines Virtual Museum
- Central Airlines
- Frontier Airlines(original)
- Hughes AirWest - This airline will always hold a special place in my heart. My first solo trip as a kid was taken on this airline. I was so excited! I was 12 and going to fly someplace all by my self. It was flight 812, a DC-9, from Yuma (AZ) via El Centro (CA) to Los Angeles. At LA I connected to Golden West Airlines for the short hop to Ontario. The reverse routing was done a few days later. This time the Hughes AirWest flight was a F27. At El Centro, I was allowed off the plane with the pilots during the short stop.
- New York Air
- North Central Airlines History (Few regional airlines operated all-cargo flights. North Central was one of them. Click here for an interesting account of North Central's all-cargo flights by a retried North Central captain.)
- Pan American World Airways history sites (This is the original Pan Am, not the ones that followed
- Piedmont Airlines
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- Presidential Airways
- The PSA History Museum and PSA History/Oldtimers Page
- Seaboard & Western / Seaboard World Airlines
- National Airlines was one of my favorite airlines. Click on the
image below to access the web site of the stewardesses and flight attendants
of National:
